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PARENTS HAVE RAISED concerns after it emerged that school grounds used for children’s activities are to be put up for sale by the religious order that owns them.
A primary school, secondary school, Montessori and daycare centre are located at the land on Goatstown Road, Dublin 14, owned by the Order of Jesus and Mary.
This would sell almost all of the school’s ‘green area’ pitches, with just tarmac and indoor hockey facilities remaining.
Parents say that this development would create road safety problems, congestion issues, as well as limit further development at the school, where places at the primary school are reportedly in demand.
The religious order are to sell the land for a reported €10 million.
In 2009 they sold other parts of the land that was zoned for housing, and the funds of which went towards a retirement fund for members of the Order.
Lisa Ryan, a mother who has two children at Our Lady’s Grove primary school, and one in the Montessori, says that although she wasn’t involved in the school at that time, there wasn’t much outrage when that happened.
“Many people thought that after the first tranche of land was sold and developed that the last piece of land would be left to the school,” she told TheJournal.ie.
A lot of people are very loyal to the order – they built the secondary school in the 1950s, the primary school was built by the state – but it will come to nothing if this land goes on the market.
As the Order are the private owners and they’re entitled to sell the land, Lisa and other parents think the government should consider buying the land, renting out facilities to clubs to make the money back.
She and other parents have written to the Department of Education to ask them to get involved and so far have been told that the government are ‘looking into the issue’.
Other developments
Last week it emerged that over seven acres of playing fields at Clonkeen College are to be sold by the Christian Brothers for €18 million.
“There seems to be a trend that religious orders are selling off assets that are valuable to the community,” Lisa says. “Notre Dame in Churchtown last year, St Paul’s in Raheny, Oatlands school have all sold land recently.”
“It does feel like the school’s being stripped back for the future,” she said.
Parents at Our Lady’s Grove are to meet next Tuesday at 8pm to discuss the issue in more detail.
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Practical solution? How about Russia withdraws back where they came from?
The Russians are desperate for any tiny victory and are getting more and more reckless and dangerous to grasp it.
@Tom Quinn: it takes them 2 months to capture a village we are gonna see them do worse things as this drags on
@Seán Ó Briain: Sean, instead of throwing a tantrum and going with the usual and predictable fake account, Russian bot BS because things aren’t going your way, how about looking at some cold hard facts?
Satellite images showing the position of the Russian forces, video of the attack and its aftermath. Note that they are approx 50 metres from a whole hell of a lot of nuclear waste. If you are comfortable with Ukraine dropping explosives that flaming close to a shed load of nuclear waste that’s fine by me but I doubt the rest of the world would agree with you.
It is a cold, hard fact that Ukraine fired explosives within an incredibly close distance of spent nuclear fuel and no amount of spin can get away from that. There was another strike there last night with the local officials saying that one of the missiles struck within 10 metres of the spent fuel. Although seeing as how the official is part of the occupational government I’d take his report with some reservation. In this case, I would wait until satellite imagery is available to confirm it.
The thing is that the only party so far to actually confirm that they have attacked the area is the Ukrainians themselves. While a drone strike would do little damage to the reactor, a hit on the spent fuel would be a disaster of their own making.
@Digital Marketing Growth with Jarvis.ai-Free Trial: But it is unavoidably Russias fault. They shouldn’t bloody be there in the first place, and no amount of half baked essays on ‘duh facts’ can cover that.
@TheJournal Here’s a link to your own comments policy because you obviously need a refresher. (thejournal.ie/comments-policy)
Is journal. ie censorship a thing. 16 comments yet only 9 on display.
My comment from earlier GONE
@Gerry Dornan: it certainly is Gerry and apparently on the rise. Plenty of lively and interesting threads deleted for no apparent reason.
Heard recently that the Russian plan is to survive till winter. When its gets bitterly cold in Europe and then they stop all gas supplies to Europe. Will Europe see electricity blackouts and rationing of energy. Europe is very much dependent on Russian energy and what will happen without it. Will we see industry forced to stop. Factories shut down. Germany is heavily dependent on Russian gas for electricity.
It’s all about Geopolitics…. a big game playing out in front of millions. The ruble vs the petrodollar!!!
@Diarmuid O’Braonáin: Russian gas exports are down overall but because of the price being so high they are actually making more for less. Add to that the fact that China, India and other countries taking up the slack from the EU and Russia is doing OK for themselves so far.
In the meantime the EU and especially Germany are screwed, we are paying over the odds for fossil fuels and all because of a knee-jerk reaction by our EU overlords. You can be guaranteed that the people who thought out (or didn’t as the case may be) these sanctions won’t be freezing this winter. No planning for future energy security and kowtowing to the US means that the whole of the EU is in a bad way.
Putin’s forces will dig into the areas that it has captured and slowly advance from there. In the meantime, people in the EU will start suffering blackouts and will have to watch their TVs while wrapped up in blankets and sleeping bags. It’s all very fine now but comes the winter it will be interesting to see what public sentiment is.
Russia has plenty of energy supplies to keep its population warm and its economy going something that the EU won’t have. When sanctions really start to bite and its people in the EU feel the worst effects I expect that people mightn’t be so harsh to criticise people like Sabina Higgins calling for ceasefire and negotiations.
@Digital Marketing Growth with Jarvis.ai-Free Trial:
what should the EU have done after the invasion happened?
Don’t tell us what they ‘shouldn’t have done’ we’ve got that from your comments already.
Tell us what they ‘should have’ done after February 23rd.
have your say